OverallGood

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

The inspection was unannounced and was carried out on 3 March 2016 by one inspector and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for people who use this type of care service.

Before the inspection the provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We checked the information we held about the service, including data about safeguarding and statutory notifications. Statutory notifications are information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. In addition, we asked for feedback from the local authority that has a quality monitoring and commissioning role with the service.

During the inspection we used different methods to help us understand the experiences of people using the service. Four of the people who used the service were non-verbal. This meant they were not able to talk to us about their experiences. We spoke with two people who used the service and a relative of a person who use the service. We also spoke with two senior support workers, three support workers, the registered manager and the operations manager.

We looked at three peopleâs care records to see if they were up to date. We also looked at three staff recruitment files and other records relating to the management of the service including quality audit records.

About us

Inspection checks

These checks were carried out under the inspection model that CQC have used since 2009. These will gradually be replaced by the CQC's new ratings (see below).

All standards were being met when the CQC inspected the service. If this service has not had a CQC inspection since it registered with the CQC, judgement may be based on the CQC's assessment of declarations and evidence supplied by the service.

At least one standard in this area was not being met when the CQC inspected the service and the CQC required improvements.

At least one standard in this area was not being met when the CQC inspected the service and the CQC have taken enforcement action.

New inspection ratings

The CQC are moving to a new inspection model and rate services according to how safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led they are, using four levels:

Outstanding – the service is performing exceptionally well.

Good - the service is performing well and meeting the CQC's expectations.

Requires improvement – the service isn't performing as well as it should and the CQC have told the service how it must improve.

Inadequate – the service is performing badly and the CQC have taken enforcement action against the provider of the service.

No rating/under appeal/rating suspended – there are some services which the CQC can't rate, while some might be under appeal from the provider. Suspended ratings are being reviewed by the CQC and will be published soon.